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Review by: GenoForPrez
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Reviewers Score:
7 / 10
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Posted: June 19, 2008 |
Game: Resident Evil 4
System: PS2
Genre: Shooter/Survival Horror
Average: 7/10
Story Score: 5/10
If you're going to be playing Resident Evil 4, you're probably not going
to be coming back for the story. This is one of those games where it's
painfully obvious that a story only exists to make sense of the fact that
you're running around firing headshots at zombies. Basically, Leon Kennedy
is sent overseas to a small European country (they fail to specify the
country's name, but accents and names are obviously Spanish) to rescue the
president's teenage daughter, Ashley, who has been abducted by shady
characters with unknown intentions. In the first cutscene of the game, the
zombies (that are not technically zombies) show up with pitchforks
and axes, Leon's backup leaves him high and dry, and the bridge to escape
the valley is destroyed. As would be expected, all is left for you, the
one-man army, to clean up.
You soon discover that the strange behavior of these people is somewhat
accounted for by the fact that they are a unique religious cult that keep
their adherents in a bizarre sort of hypnosis, which causes them to move
around mechanically, instinctively attack outsiders, and for some reason
forget about hygiene, cleanliness, and personal health altogether (hence
the zombies that are not technically zombies). At this stage of the
game, the story is simple but satisfying, and the ambiguities and
mysteries surrounding the nature of the cult makes for an extremely
pleasant gaming atmosphere. After all, the bizarre is even creepier when
mixed with the unknown.
Unfortunately, the storyline later drifts into a trend of over-explanation
and lack of direction. By the time you reach the final levels, you'll
probably be tired of listening to diatribes about an ancient parasite
named "los plagas" (wonder how long it took them to think of that name)
and even more tired of failed attempts at wittiness. Sometimes the
transitions from one place to another will even seem a little on the
random side. All you will know (or need to know) is that there are scary
things, and their heads must be exploded.
On the upside, the mindlessly meandering storyline makes the game feel
incredibly long! I can promise you that, at some point, you will surely
ask yourself "Does this game ever end?!" and mean it in a good way. Most
of the time, action games lead to the question "Is it really halfway over
already?!" So I will definitely count that as a plus.
Sadly, I have to turn around and subtract major points from the story
score due to atrocious dialogue, which at times is almost unbearable in
badness. The villains try to sound cool and calculating but instead come
off as either annoying or feminine. Salazar and Krawser feel like
unnecessary villains from the beginning and never recover. Salazar's
prissy, giggly mannerisms never cease to irritate. Saddler has the look
and manner of a cool and calculating villain, but instead of having the
expected knowing-and-sinister voice, he speaks to you in a semi-whiny tone
that sounds like a mother cooing at a child. He might as well be saying, "Aww...
you're so cute when you try to win."
All dialogue in the game suffers from a terrible lack of wittiness, which
is unfortunate, since witty comebacks are attempted at every turn. Grown
men sound like 7th graders having "I know you are, but what am I" style
disputes.
The story and its dialogue, needless to say, are not the game's strong
suite.
Gameplay Score: 7/10
On a more positive note, the game is very good in terms of its gameplay.
The third person over-the-shoulder style perspective is unique and somehow
adds to the intensity of those suspenseful corridors. Enemies are
sensitive to "hit zones" when you fire at them, allowing the traditional
headshots, but also allowing you to do things like shooting enemies in the
legs to make them stumble and fall. There are even more difficult enemies
that are invincible unless shot in very specific places.
You control Leon with the left analog stick, and the camera will always
point directly over his shoulder (though you can use the right analogue
stick to turn it 90 degrees left or right---the in-game equivalent of
turning your head). Weapons are aimed by holding R1 and moving the left
analogue stick, and fired with X. Reloading is accomplished by holding R1
and tapping [ ] or O. You can check your location on the map (which you
get for free and don't have to buy or find) by pressing /\.
One of the best traits of RE4 that sets it apart from other games in the
shooting universe is that it gives the player a slot-based inventory to
play with, which is usually something you would encounter in RPGs. By
pressing start, the player is given access to Leon's case, in which he
carries all of his weapons, ammunition, and miscellaneous curative items.
You can only carry as many things as will fit in your case, so you will
have to rearrange items to make the things you want to carry fit. The case
is basically a grid of squares, and each item you carry takes up so many
squares (for instance, a gun might take up a 5x4 area of squares, while
ammunition takes up 2x1). You can rotate items and move them anywhere in
the case you like, as long as they fit. As you manipulate items in your
inventory, you're rewarded with those satisfying "snap", "chink", "click"
type sounds that are reminiscent of the hero-preparing-for-battle montages
in action films. Chink. Click. You're about to kick ass. The ability to
mix herbs you find to create different kinds of restorative items is
simple, but satisfying. All of this spells a good time for gamers who love
having inventories full of tools.
Another huge plus to the gameplay is the ability to collect and sell
treasures to the merchant. So you'll be pillaging in this game as much as
you'll be blowing heads off of Spanish cult zombies. Many treasures in the
game can only be sold as they are found, but other treasures are actually
broken pieces of larger treasures that can later be reassembled into
artifacts that sell for a huge payoff. Just be careful that you don't
accidentally sell one of the pieces of the artifact before you can make
that happen! You'll want to raise a lot of money to buy new, more powerful
weapons from the masked (Australian?) merchant that occasionally pops up
to assist you. He'll even sell you larger cases to hold more items!
At various place in the adventure, there is even the option of
participating in a shooting gallery mini-game. If you score high enough,
you're given a cash reward (one time only) and a collectible figurine to
keep. This is good news for misers, and even better news for
completionists, as there are (if I recall) 20 collectible figurines (the
game calls them bottle caps), which means a lot of time spent in the
shooting gallery.
The game accomplishes the survival aspect of this horror game very well.
I'm not sure how their mechanism works, but somehow it will always work
out that you have just enough ammunition to get you through a
situation. As a result, you almost always feel like you're running low and
need to find more ammo or more herbs to make restorative items. Better
yet, every single pickup you find makes you feel like you scored big.
There are only a few criticisms as far as gameplay, which can easily be
overlooked, but are worth mentioning.
First, while the unique over-the-shoulder perspective is conducive to
horror, suspense, and originality, it will definitely frustrate the hell
out of you as often as it will please you, especially when paired up with
the fact that you cannot run and shoot simultaneously in this game. Leon
can only shoot while standing still and the camera can only look straight
ahead. Imagine being in the middle of a swarm of zombies that want to kill
you, and imagine you're wearing a neck brace and a set of horse blinders,
and imagine that you're trying to keep your eye on all of them at once,
and imagine you can only shoot at them while standing still. Long story
short: You will get raped by zombies. It's inevitable. Try. Try
again.
This will annoy you in certain boss battles as well, when bosses are
leaping halfway across levels and charging toward you at fast speeds, all
while you feel like you're trying to watch them with one good eye while
hopping on a broken leg.
This could have been easily remedied by giving the player the ability to
run and shoot simultaneously and by giving the player a little more
control over their field of vision. But, as was said, doing so would have
possibly removed one of the reasons the unsettling atmosphere in the game
seems more intense. However, it can be frustrating.
Also, the hit zone system seems as if it isn't always perfect. Sometimes
you can blow a zombie villager's head clear off his shoulders with a
single blast from your shotgun. Other times, you can nail a different
zombie villager six times in the head with your shotgun at nearly point
blank range and his head will miraculously still be intact. This is more
the exception than the rule, though.
I also didn't like another game mechanic that many other reviewers have
praised. Namely, the action commands in cutscenes and in boss battles.
Sometimes during cinematic parts of the game, a villain or monster will
suddenly attack Leon. The screen will suddenly flash an action command,
which asks you to press R1+R2 simultaneously or X+[ ] simultaneously. The
result is that Leon either dodges the danger, and the cutscene continues,
or Leon dies, forcing you to continue and adding one extra death to your
completion statistics. It's an interesting mechanic, and I didn't dislike
it entirely during the cinematic scenes. The only problem was that they're
not very consistent. The game has many, many cinematic scenes, and these
action commands only appear in a few of them. So you will never know if
it's okay to reach over and take a sip of that soda while a cinematic
scene is playing, lest you have to throw it to the floor in a mad scramble
to save Leon's life. These commands are also called for in boss battles,
allowing Leon to nimbly escape rapid attacks from bosses. In my opinion,
it's the exact opposite situations in boss battles---especially the later
ones---the mechanic is over-done. Also, bosses will sometimes pull
off these special rapid techniques, and the cue for the action command
will fail to display, giving you no chance to execute the dodge, which,
sorry to say, is extremely annoying when that happens. You just
lost half your health to an accident. Congratulations. Again, though, this
is more the exception than the rule.
But overall, I didn't like the mechanic. Many others did, though, so you
may very well enjoy it.
Overall, the gameplay is pretty sweet. In my opinion, the game is much
stronger when you're exploring corridors and picking off an occasional
batch of three or four zombie Spaniards than when the game demands you to
turn into a one-man army and pick off 30 zombies, three of which are
pockets of hit points carrying instant death chainsaws. The game sometimes
asks you to do things the controls and camera don't seem to be built for.
But mostly very well done.
Replay Value Score:
10/10
A ton of replay value with this title. The main adventure is long and
satisfying, but when you're finally done, the game unlocks new features
for you, including:
Separate Ways: Five new full-length levels allowing the player to control
Ada Wong (aka lady in the red dress) and discover exactly what she was up
to while Leon was attempting to save the president's daughter. This is a
good thing, since A) It's a lot of fun, and B) Ada's random appearances in
the main storyline are random and unexplained, leaving you to wonder why
the hell they wrote her in there anyway. Separate Ways fixes that problem
with flying colors.
Mercenaries: A gameplay mode that drops you into a game environment and
asks you to kill as many enemies as you can within the time limit. Killing
a lot of enemies consecutively earns you bonus points, and some crates and
boxes contain bonus time or score multipliers. I humbly admit that this
mode kicks my ass, and I will never be good at it. But it is an excellent
unlockable. If you score well enough with Leon, you can unlock new
characters for mercenaries mode.
Finally, there are unlockable outfits for Leon and Ashley, and there are
unlockable weapons, including the crossbow that launches explosive-tipped
arrows, the plasma gun, and the infinite missile launcher!
Huge replay value points.
Would I recommend this game? Yes. It has its shortcomings, but it's a
great little adventure. |
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